Resonances of Chindon-Ya: Sound, Space, and Social Difference in Contemporary Japan
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Resonances of Chindon-ya: Sound, Space, and Social Difference in Contemporary Japan By Marié Abe A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Music in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Jocelyne Guilbault, Co-chair Professor Bonnie Wade, Co-chair Professor Alan Tansman Professor Gillian Hart Fall 2010 Resonances of Chindon-ya: Sound, Space, and Social Difference in Contemporary Japan © 2010 by Marié Abe Abstract Resonances of Chindon-ya: Sound, Space, and Social Difference in Contemporary Japan by Marié Abe Doctor of Philosophy in Music University of California, Berkeley Professor Jocelyne Guilbault, Co-chair Professor Bonnie Wade, Co-chair This dissertation examines the intersection of sound, public space, and social difference in contemporary Japanese urban life through ethnographic analysis of a Japanese street musical practice called chindon-ya. Chindon-ya, which dates back to the 1850s, refers to groups of outlandishly costumed street musicians in Japan who are hired to advertise an employer’s business. After decades of inactivity, chindon-ya has been undergoing a resurgence since the early 1990s. Despite being labeled as anachronistic and obscure, some chindon-ya troupes today have achieved financial success generating up to one million dollars in annual income, while chindon-ya aesthetics has been taken up by rock, jazz, and experimental musicians and refashioned into hybridized musical practices. In the context of long-term economic downturn, growing socioeconomic gaps, and visually and sonically saturated urban streets, I ask how such an “outdated” means of advertisement has not only proven itself to be financially viable, but has also enabled widely varying sentiments, musical styles, translocal relations, forms of business enterprise, and political aspirations to articulate with one another. I analyze ethnographic observations, interviews, audio-visual materials, and archival documents I collected during fieldwork in Japan between 2006 and 2008 in order to investigate how chindon-ya has recently become reinvested and reconfigured with new meanings and possibilities. Bridging cultural geography and anthropology of sound, I pay particular attention to the production of social space through sonic culture. The popular imaginary of chindon-ya is closely associated with neighborhood streets, everyday soundscape, and the notion of “taishû” – the popular mass, or the public. When the neighborhood streets are increasingly regulated, privatized, and developed, and when “taishû” is fragmented through the recession era, what kinds of understanding of space and “public” emerge from chindon-ya today as they resonate with the shifting geographies of urban modernity? By extension, through this investigation, I raise what Stuart Hall calls the multicultural question in Japan by asking who constitutes the listening public as imagined by chindon-ya practitioners. I posit that listening to chindon-ya’s sounds challenges the commonsense notion of Japanese public space as anonymous, transparent, and 1 homogeneous. Rather, the performative tactics of chindon-ya highlight issues that are otherwise silenced by the official discourse of Japan as a monoethnic nation: the Japanese colonial histories; the presence of “ethnic minorities”; and political struggles between the island of Okinawa, mainland Japan, and the US military. These analyses in turn shed light on how chindon-ya aesthetic has enabled emergent modalities of political expressions, based on politics of pleasure instead of politics of indignation. Even though my multi-sited research takes place within the national border of Japan, it has a broader regional significance. My research elucidates connections, interactions, and flows between Japan and wider Pacific regions that are produced both within and beyond the national borders. In addition, the combination of my sonic-spatial analytic, based on cultural geography and anthropology of sound, and ethnographic focus on everyday practices has a significant theoretical and methodological import to other entanglements of translocal interaction. 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1 Listening to Chindon-ya’s Resonance Introduction 1 Unfolding of the Project 2 Part I: Brief Definition of Chindon-ya 4 Description 4 Historical Snapshots 5 Chindon-ya Today 8 Part II: Reception, Perception, and Representation of Chindon-ya 9 Affective Responses and Nostalgia 9 Uniquely Japanese? Transnational Roots 10 Performance Arts and Commerce: Uneasy Position on the Streets 12 Soundings: Chindon-ya and the Sound-Noise-Music Debate 13 Part III: Analytical Methodological considerations 15 Research Questions 15 Emergent Analytic: Resonance 16 On being a “Native Ethnographer” and an Active Musical Collaborator 21 Constituting a Research Topic, Conducting Multi-sited Fieldwork 25 Chapter Outline 27 Chapter 2 Performing Genealogies: Historical Resonances of Difference Introduction: Ethnographic Fairytales 28 Part I: Magicians of Sound: From Brass Bands to Chindon-ya 31 Brass Bands: Dscipling the National Body through Military Music 31 Jinta as Japanized Brass Band: Accidental Heterophony 34 Performing Genealogies: Colonial Traces 37 Part II: Marginalized Otherness and Street Performances 41 The Social Position of Jinta and Chindon-ya Performers 43 Marginalization and Contestation 45 Part III: Chindon-ya and the Ordinary 49 Taishû and Nostalgia 49 i Nostalgia and Sameness 54 Conclusion 55 Chapter 3 Imaginative Empathy: Political Economy of Affect and Sound Introduction 57 Part I: Feedback Loop of the Pecuniary and the Social 58 Imaginative Empathy 62 Part II: Sounding Imaginative Empathy 63 Shifting Geographies of Modernity: Streets, Public Space, and Sociality 63 Chindon-ya’s Spatial Practices: Negotiating Space 66 Chindon-ya’s Spatial Practices: Producing Resonance 69 Part III: Hired to be Overheard 75 Spatialized Sounds, Spatialized Listening 76 Disembodied Sounds and Mass Intimacy 77 Allure of the mobile and the Live 79 Indexical Sound of Chindon-ya: Kane 80 Strategic Nostalgia: Making Money with Uncommodified Sounds? 82 Conclusion 83 Chapter 4 Shaking Bodies on Shaky Ground: Chindon-inspired Musics and Henoko Peace Music Festa Introduction 85 “Neo-chindon” phenomenon: chindon-ya Inspired practices 86 Crisis of Public Space? 89 Crisis of Public Space in Henoko 91 Sounding Multiple Geographies 93 1.Resonance of “Bachigai” (out of place) 94 2.Resonance of Imaginative Empathy: Rearticulating Differences 96 3.Resonance of Pleasure (beyond Bakhtinean Politics) 99 Conclusion 101 ii Coda Resonances and Improvisation 103 The Multicultural Question 104 Contradictions 106 Future Directions 107 Conclusion 108 References 110 iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I cannot begin to adequately express my gratitude for the truly supportive and inspiring guidance of my two main advisers, Professor Bonnie Wade and Professor Jocelyne Guilbault. This dissertation would not have been possible without their constant encouragement and critical feedback throughout fieldwork and the writing process. I would like to thank Professor Alan Tansman for his intellectually rigorous feedback and compassionate mentorship, especially in moments of difficulties and challenges. Professor Gillian Hart has been a great source of inspiration in developing this research since its inception. Their guidance in conceiving, developing, and writing this inherently interdisciplinary project has been invaluable. I also have been greatly inspired by Professor Steven Feld during his visiting Professorship at University of California, Berkeley as well as in the ongoing exchanges, whose insights have greatly expanded and sharpened my analytics. Professor George Lipsitz’s comments on my writing at an early stage were extremely stimulating and helpful in honing my arguments. In Japan, Professor Hosokawa Shûhei was my sponsor. I am thankful for his kindness and openness to share his passion and knowledge on the research subject. Friendships and kindness of the large cohort of musicians, chindon-ya practitioners, intellectuals, organizers, and performers in Japan were essential during my fieldwork in Japan. I especially thank Ôkuma Wataru, Hayashi Kôjirô, Kawaguchi Masaaki, Kariyasaki Ikuko (Pinky), Seto Nobuyuki, Takada Yôsuke, Itami Hideko, Nakagawa Takashi, members of Chichûike, Kei, and many other chindon-ya practitioners as well as chindon-inspired musicians who have opened their homes, offices, and hearts to me. Making music with them, talking with them, and spending time with them greatly enriched my fieldwork experiences and shaped my work. I owe gratitude to all my colleagues who have read and given me feedback throughout the writing process. In particular, I thank the Center for Race and Gender Studies Dissertation Writing Group members for their critical feedback and empathic support. In particular, I express sincere thanks to Christina Zanfagna, Jennifer Casolo, Alia Pan, Sang Lee, Petra Rivera, Shalini Ayygari, Matt Rahaim, Paul Roquet, Miki Kaneda, and Brad Erickson for their honest and insightful input. I gratefully acknowledge the receipt of financial support from the Pacific Rim Research Council, Center for Japanese Studies at University of California, Berkeley, and the Department of Music at University of California, Berkeley. Lastly, I offer my dearest thanks to my parents, friends, and particularly musical collaborators in both Japan and in the Bay Area whose care and creativity have